Far East of Eden

Directed by Bruce Yonemoto
Featuring Karen Finley and George Takei

The experimental film “Far East of Eden” 2016 features notorious performance artist Karen Finley, directed by video artist Bruce Yonemoto, and narrated by actor and activist George Takei. The film links Donald Trump to a long American history of racial exclusion. The 2016 election was volatile with many American citizens taken aback by the anti-immigrant rhetoric that served as the foundation of Donald Trump’s run for President. But if Trump’s promises of building a wall or banning Muslims from the United States sounded unique or new, they were not. America has seen politicians like Trump before, and their words and policies have had dire consequences.

“Far East of Eden” traces a course from the rhetoric of Senator Phelan, an outspoken opponent of Asian immigration at the turn of the last century, through the internment of Japanese-American families during World War II, to Trump’s flamboyant promises to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Phelan, himself the son of an Irish immigrant, was a vocal opponent of immigration from China and Japan who campaigned for office under the slogan, “Keep California White.”

Karen Finley delivers a raw, transgressive performance that wickedly parodies Donald J. Trump. She mashes Senator James D. Phelan’s racist rhetoric and Woody Guthrie’s classic lyrics “This land is your land. This land is my land. Let’s make sure it’s not their land.”

The film weaves in George Takei’s personal story as a child recounting his family being taken away to the Japanese American internment camps during World War II. “We were ordered out of our home,” Takei says in the film. “They couldn’t even call us citizens then. We were enemy non-aliens…. We were taken to the horse stables. Thinking back now, I can’t imagine how humiliating and degrading it must have been for my parents.”

“Far East of Eden” traces a course from the rhetoric of Senator Phelan, an outspoken opponent of Asian immigration at the turn of the last century, through the internment of Japanese-American families during World War II, to Trump’s flamboyant promises to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Phelan, himself the son of an Irish immigrant, was a vocal opponent of immigration from China and Japan who campaigned for office under the slogan, “Keep California White.”

…the jarring juxtaposition of James Phelan and Donald Trump shows just how the rhetoric of racism can span a century.”
—Taylor Lindsay, VICE

More a blunt hammer than entertainment, the film is not really meant to be liked. The significance lies with the back story: A premiere arts program in the Bay Area is dealing very visibly with the racist past of its benefactor. Even a century later, that takes a measure of courage.”
—Scott Herhold, The Mercury News